--- title: How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works | TIME description: The Android-based Atrix 4G phone is powerful in its own right—dual core processor, an entire gigabyte of RAM, 4-inch 960x540 screen—and that power is used to drive an entire laptop-sized interface with the addition of Motorola's $500 Lapdock. canonical: https://time.com/video/VOeBRCHG/ og:title: How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works og:description: The Android-based Atrix 4G phone is powerful in its own right—dual core processor, an entire gigabyte of RAM, 4-inch 960x540 screen—and that power is used to drive an entire laptop-sized interface with the addition of Motorola's $500 Lapdock. og:url: https://time.com/video/VOeBRCHG/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VOeBRCHG/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works twitter:description: The Android-based Atrix 4G phone is powerful in its own right—dual core processor, an entire gigabyte of RAM, 4-inch 960x540 screen—and that power is used to drive an entire laptop-sized interface with the addition of Motorola's $500 Lapdock. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VOeBRCHG/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works [Watch (HLS stream): How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VOeBRCHG.m3u8) (2:00)  _Published 2011-03-10. The Android-based Atrix 4G phone is powerful in its own right—dual core processor, an entire gigabyte of RAM, 4-inch 960x540 screen—and that power is used to drive an entire laptop-sized interface with the addition of Motorola's $500 Lapdock._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:10 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [This Is How The NRA Got So Powerful](/video/M3qXfmOi/) ### This Is How The NRA Got So Powerful [Quantum Power - Time Is Power trailer](/video/EapCJ28H/) ### Quantum Power - Time Is Power trailer [Motorola Droid 2](/video/qihq3qDa/) ### Motorola Droid 2 --- ## Transcript Can a common smartphone really be powerful enough to function as a fully- fledged computer? Motorola is giving it a shot with its Atrix 4G Android phone and laptop dock combo. Spoiler alert, it is the future. Other spoiler alert, the future is very expensive. Let's take a look. The phone itself is sufficiently impressive enough on its own to warrant a purchase. It's a Dual Core processor, Android 4G phone, tons of RAM, front- and rear- facing cameras, fingerprint reader that doubles as a power button, 4- inch screen, 960x540 super high res screen, 200 bucks. It's the best Android phone I've ever used. So, there you have it. The real story, though, is the laptop dock. It's very thin, it's pretty light at 2- 1 / 2 pounds. It's like a very slim netbook size, 11- inch screen that's got this little dock connector on the back. You dock the phone in the connector like so, and the entire phone, the guts of the phone, actually power the laptop. All the connection is handled through the phone. The data connection, you can use the 4G connection or the WiFi connection. There's a custom interface. It's got access to all your phone and phone functions. You can basically control the phone right from the computer gear, and it's got a full Firefox web browser. So, you can browse sites as they're meant to be viewed. There's also several other built- in applications. The dock charges the phone as it's in there. But unfortunately, once the phone is removed, the dock does nothing. It's useless. Performance when used as a notebook is kind of a mixed bag. I mean, on the food chain of computing devices, it kinda sits somewhere in between a tablet and a netbook. It's not quite as powerful as your standard netbook. A little bit more sluggish. So, how much can you expect to pay for this wonderful technology? Well, the laptop dock coupled with the phone, 500 bucks with a two- year AT & T contract. Laptop dock on its own, if you don't buy it at the time of purchase with the phone, also 500 bucks. You'll also need a $ 45 per month AT & T data plan. That's just a data plan before voice plan. That's what we call in the industry, and this is the technical term for it, a spicy meatball. That being said, this is the future. This is where things are heading. It's starting now. Phones will all do this someday. You'll dock them into various devices, and that will be your computer. The future that everyone's been talking about? It's coming. Strap in or move to a mountain. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How the Motorola Atrix Smartphone-Powered Laptop Works","description":"The Android-based Atrix 4G phone is powerful in its own right—dual core processor, an entire gigabyte of RAM, 4-inch 960x540 screen—and that power is used to drive an entire laptop-sized interface with the addition of Motorola's $500 Lapdock.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/VOeBRCHG/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-03-10T22:10:59.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VOeBRCHG.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/VOeBRCHG/","duration":"PT2M","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/VOeBRCHG/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```